


Waiting for the dawn

by Sashaya



Series: Days and Nights [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Mild Sexual Content, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:44:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sashaya/pseuds/Sashaya
Summary: She walks under the scorching sun, spots the threat before it can harm anyone and dreams of bodies, calling her name and begging for help.Sometimes she falls, heavy and resigned, right into Kim’s bed.





	Waiting for the dawn

**Author's Note:**

> **_Disclaimer_** _I don't own any of the characters._
> 
>  _A/N:_ Unbeta'ed work. Was supposed to be part of a series (with end-game Vetra/Ryder, because I'm a sucker for turians, but it just... died.)
> 
> If you want to say ' _hi_ ' (or point out my mistakes) - pop in at [SharkTofu](http://sharktofu.tumblr.com/).

The sun on Eos is warm on her skin, gentle like a lover’s touch. It makes her think of Earth, of beaches with clear-blue seas, waves crashing at her feet and her mother’s laugher in the background, chased by her giggling father with Scott on his shoulders. She enjoys the sound, the feel of sand gritting under her heavy boots, and pointedly doesn’t think the sound of breaking bones seems so similar. She looks at the reddish lake, moaning about bathing suits, and doesn’t muse if it was always this color or has the tragedy of the people before her tinted the environment with the forever reminder. 

Addison’s tore between nagging her about her Pathfinder’s responsibilities and relived, that despite Ryder’s choice, Eos is not left defenseless, easy to pick and take. There might not be a rackety military outpost ready to push out any waves of enemies, but they have hope resting on Ryder’s slim shoulders, twisted around her fingers as they carefully lay on top of her sniper rifle. 

She’s a symbol now, a piece of history. She wants to be more than that, more than just a story told from person to person. 

So she wakes up with the first sunbeams and ignores Tann’s calls to get her back to Nexus, to push her to take action again. She reads Kallo’s badly-veiled whines about being stuck in a dock again, Lexi’s persistent calls to see her or let her visit (“ _Or you can simply come back to the ship, Ryder, since it’s yours more than ours_ ”). She makes Cora walk the perimeter along with Liam to keep their concerned, displeased looks away from her. 

She helps with everything she can – planting, looking for missing parts, looking for missing people. She patrols the whole Prodromos, makes sure the people here can sleep well and sound, without screams tearing the calm nights like traumatic memories. She promised them a better world, she lied to Scott about finding home. Let her lie hold even a grain of truth, even if she has to drag the truth to the planet’s surface herself.

She walks under the scorching sun, spots the threat before it can harm anyone and dreams of bodies, calling her name and begging for help.

She cries, when the nameless victims turn into her mom, dad, Scott, and they crowd her with empty eyes, bloodied lips, gaping bullet holes. Their pleas for mercy turn into accusations of docility, lack of empathy, incompetence.

Scott’s voice carry the bitterness she feels stuck in her throat. He keeps asking ‘ _How could you lie to me?_ ’.

She answers him in a river of tears, half-choked sobs escaping her when she wakes up.

Sometimes she stumbles, doesn’t hide her bone-tiredness well enough in the spring of her steps. Drack laughs at her, loud and boisterous, calculated, and perfectly taking the attention away from her crumbling shape. Vetra offers sweets and even sweeter half-smiles, soft and knowing. 

Sometimes she falls, heavy and resigned, right into Kim’s bed. She finds new paths on her light skin with rough fingers, traces new trails between clusters of her beauty marks with her tongue. She sings with ecstasy, quiet and breathless; becomes nothing, but a doll with no strings, ready to be put to life. Kim laughs, throaty and deep, pushes her head down and breaks her own voice with begging, breaks her own body with shuddering. 

Sometimes she sits on Kim’s bed, clad in nothing, but a memory of touch still dancing on her skin, as Kim remembers how to breathe and praises the stars. 

She used to smoke, long ago, when she was a teenager, and Scott and her wanted to try something new. She liked it, even though Scott spat it out and declared to never touch it again. 

Sometimes, when she sits on Kim’s bed, waiting for the morning, she wishes for one cigarette, just one to inhale the bad and let it go in a gray smoke. She wishes she could wrap her lips around it and feel rebellious instead of broken. 

“Does she love you?” Liam asks sometimes, when she leaves Kim’s bed too late and everyone can be a witness to her human side. 

“I hope not,” she answers sometimes, when they are far away no-one else can hear them. She bites her lips, looks where Kim stands and to the ship. She feels the yearning to move again, to fly, to never look back. She’s a romantic and hates breaking hearts, even if she collects all the shards of her own. 

Sometimes Kim notices them, sends her a sly smile, but doesn’t react beyond, doesn’t stop her work, doesn’t stop trying to catch Vetra’s eyes. Ryder breathes a little easier then, goes back to Kim’s bed, when the evening comes and doesn’t leave until the first light. 

“I could love you,” Kim says with eyes closed and a satisfied smile on her lips. Her chest is bare, moving up and down in a series of short, quick breathes, while Ryder lies on her smooth thigh, content like a cat. “If you let me.”

“Don’t,” she begs, whines in the bite mark on Kim’s skin. Her fingers tangle with Ryder’s short hair and she tugs at them playfully, laughing. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not someone, who enjoys keeping people on the leash. Though, you would make a magnificent lapdog,” she swallows her words, when Ryder slides over her body, presses them close and bites at her lips.

“Careful, I bite.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.”

Ryder leaves in the morning, places a goodbye kiss to Kim’s swollen lips, while the woman laughs that she’s too old for that, would rather have a goodbye fuck. 

She’s dressed in her uniform, the armor fitting her like second skin and her shoulders seem to be lighter, less burdened. Cora smiles at her, looks her straight in the eye.

“Welcome back, Pathfinder,” she says as Ryder takes the bridge. 

“Welcome home,” someone says, like an echo, soft and non-intrusive. Her eyes are already set far away, in the stars, seeking and hoping. 

“Let’s find an adventure,” she smiles, stands straight and tall, no regrets in the corners of her eyes as she looks at Prodromos’ white buildings. 

Kallo hums an unknown melody, steering them towards the Heleus Cluster.

When she leaves Eos’ bright sun and hot sand, she muses that the lake has the color of Kim’s short hair.

She breathes easier.


End file.
